Through the eyes of Lunaspina in Second Life

Artsville: Lunaspina Anatine, January 2023

Opening on Friday, January 6th, 2023 at Frank Atisso’s Artsville gallery complex is Endless – Through My Eyes by Lunaspina Anatine. Occupying Gallery 2 at the complex, this is a selection of landscape pieces which have been taken within a single region, that of Sombre Nyx’s Endless: Birdlings Flat, each one utilising a minimalist approach and compositional style which immediate capture the eye and the imagination.

This is clearly evident from the first image within the series – Endless 01, located just inside the left side entrance to the hall as you enter it. The images presents a view of a set of communications dishes set against a cloudy sky. But where are they – what are they? Civilian? Military? On a building or high on a mast?

Artsville: Lunaspina Anatine, January 2023

In successive  images we encounter more – a field in a misty dawn (or perhaps late afternoon) and a grid of upright posts, slender wires strung between them. They appear to be sitting within a field – but again, what are they? A place where vines are to be planted and grown for their crop of grapes? If so, then where are the vertical lines for the vines to grow along? So if not that, then what?

Thus, as we progress around the images, these is the invitation for us to form a story around them. as to what they may represent. Of course, those familiar with Birdlings Flat (which I wrote about it here) may opt just to enjoy the images in this exhibition in their own right; and there is nothing wrong with this, nor do visitors need to be familiar with the region. Seeking a narrative is purely a matter of choice; these are images which can be enjoyed in their own right and as individual compositions.

Artsville: Lunaspina Anatine, January 2023

At the same time, these pieces – beautifully post-processed and making superb use of various EEP settings – speak to the marvels of Second Life, a place that can be visually expressive, filled with opportunities to explore yet also at times empty of of people  – just as many remote parts of the physical world (such as the eastern end of Kaitorete Spit on which Birdlings Flat is based) can be as well. Within each one, Lunaspina perfectly captures the essence of the term endless.

I confess that I’m not aware of having witnessed an individual exhibition by Lunaspina, and I was immediately captivated by her overall approach to her images – camera placement, angle, subject focus, used of depth-of-field, etc., – in that I could not help but see a strong similarity to the work of another artist I admire hugely – Melusina Parkin. This should not be taken to mean either artist is in any way derivative of the other; rather they both have a eye for composition that I find attractive and engaging and which teases out their subject gently to their audience.

Artsville: Lunaspina Anatine, January 2023

A warm, easy-to-appreciate exhibition of landscape art which is – as noted – also beautifully layered, Endless – Through My Eyes is well worth visiting.

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Walking a Cloud Edge in Second Life

Cloud Edge, January 2023 – click any image for full size

Funky Banana is a region designer with a keen eye for detail and an imagination capable of presenting settings which can attract and enthral. I’ve covered his work a number of times in these pages, going all the way back to 2016. However, it has been a while since I’ve made any visits, so when Cloud Edge popped up on my radar screen, I decided to set things to rights once more and hop over to take a look.

The last couple of times I did write about Funky’s work was in covering Wild Edge (in 2018) and Summer Edge (in 2019); designs which clearly share a common element in their naming with Cloud Edge. Both of these designs offered much for visitors to appreciate – and so does this one, but in a very different way; in fact, I’d go so far to say that in its disarmingly simple design, Cloud Edge is one of the most imaginative region builds I’ve seen of late.

Cloud Edge, January 2023

It is a setting more than adequately explained through its About Land description:

Welcome to Cloud Edge.
A high ground environment based above the clouds, surrounded by mountains. A place to escape, relax and enjoy the views.

And so it is that arrivals find themselves in the mountains, surrounded by high, snowy peaks and lower, snow-free ridges not so far above or below the tree-line that whilst the majority of their vegetation is moss on the rocks and hardy shrubs and bushes, a few stunted trees deformed by wind and cold into krummholz manage to survive. Between these ridges and peaks and the much higher surrounding mountains is a sea of white, the tops of clouds obscuring everything below from view and giving the impression that the peaks, ridges and mountain tops are islands sitting within an ocean of fluffy white.

Cloud Edge, January 2023

The landing point is set on a broad wooden deck, also rising above the cloud tops (which are formed using Fluff Clouds by Satomi XOXO), and moored to a slender ridge of rock by a single wood-and-rope bridge. Watched over by a single crow seemingly unaffected by the altitude, the bridge provides access to a rocky path as it skirts around a small peak to run along the spine of the ridge to a second peak, passing the krummholz tenaciously clinging to its flanks.

A further bridge stretches out over the hidden abyss at the end of this path, guarded by a young eagle that periodically takes the air before settling back on a rocky perch. The bridge itself extends out over and into the clouds, vanishing before connecting to land once more. This it does by way of a finger of rock of a semi-regular shape suggestive of interesting wind patterns flowing around these peaks, and which is in turn connected to a further pinnacle of rock via a second bridge.

Cloud Edge, January 2023

This bridge is allowed passage through the rock by means of a natural-looking tunnel burrowing its way through the flat top of this peak, which rises higher than the rocky finger to which it is linked, but not as high as the peak at the southern end of the ridge with its footpath. Beyond the tunnel lies a shoulder of rock on which a further deck has been built, offering superb views of the remaining peaks within the region’s boundaries, both of which are isolated from access by foot, and the largest of which features a powerful waterfall facing the deck like a shimmer curtain as it drops into the clouds below.

One of the things I’ve always appreciated with Funky’s region designs is the degree of minimalism he employs. Where others would be tempted to add life to a setting with – say – the addition of birds or animals or further flora, Funk keeps things such that there is know to give life to his settings and no more.

Cloud Edge, January 2023

Thus, while it might have been easy it add trees hither and thither, or add mountain goats to “enhance” the sense of elevation, Funky resists, offering only those trees and birds required to underscore the sense that we are indeed at some altitude, allowing the surrounding clouds to speak for themselves. Similarly, the soundscape for the region is kept to the perfect minimum of the lonely moan of wind over exposed rock, the occasional cry of a crow and the slow growth of water falling over rocks as you approach the deck overlooking the falls.

Beautifully conceived and executed, Cloud Edge is visually impressive and offers plenty of scope for art and photography. Those who do so are invited to add their images to the Cloud Edge Flickr stream, whilst visitors are invited to claim a small gift from Funky’s Marketplace store.

Cloud Edge, January 2023

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January 2023 SL Web User Group summary

The Web User Group meeting venue, Denby

The following notes cover the key points from the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, January 4th, 2023.

WUG meetings:

  • Are held in-world, generally on the first Wednesday of the month – see the SL public calendar.
  • Cover Second Life front-end web properties (Marketplace, secondlife.com, the sign-up pages, the Lab’s corporate pages, etc.).
  • They are not intended for the discussion of Governance issues, land fees / issues, content creation & tools, viewer or simulator development / projects. Please refer to the SL calendar for information on available meetings for these topics.

A video of the meeting, courtesy of Pantera, can be found embedded at the end of this article (my thanks to her as always!), and subject timestamps to the relevant points in the video are provided. Again, the following is a summary of key topics / discussions, not a full transcript of everything mentioned.

Updates for December 2022

Marketplace Elastic Search Overhaul

[Video: 3:41-5:27]

  • Following recent delays, it had been hoped the MP search updates would be deployed before the end of 2022. Unfortunately, issues with the updates continued to prevent this.
  • The hope is now to have thing deployed as the “first thing” for web-related deployments, hopefully by the end of January 2023.
  • As a reminder: this work is essentially the same kind of back-end update as carried out with Web search a few months ago, with the emphasis on faster, more robust performance, together with new search options, including:
    • Merchant and store names will no long be searched in product searches.
    • Wildcard (e.g. using *) will be possible.
    • Better exact matching against search terms
    • The back-end supports fuzzy matching to better handle typos when inputting searches.
    • There should be a noticeable increase in speed of search results being returned.
  • Once running, these updates will allow LL to add-in the relevance engine AI to the Marketplace search (as a separate API entity to the relevance engine already running on the web search).

“Land Ownership Journey”

[Video: 5:31-7:30]

Summary: A complete re-write of every route by which users can obtain and hold land, from Premium (+Plus) Linden Homes, obtaining Mainland (incl. Abandoned Land), and private island regions, and renting from private estates.

  • The first user-facing element of this work – the new Land Portal, a central hub from which to get to all aspects of land “ownership” – will likely be deployed by the end of January 2023.
  • The Portal layout is liable to be a template / proof of concept for overhauling the rest of the Second Life web properties to give them a coherent appearance, make them easier to maintain and add new pages, make SL’s web presence more performant overall and ensure it works on mobile devices as well as desktops / laptops.
  • Once the Portal has been deployed, the focus will shift to the Linden Homes selection pages.

Marketplace Styles

[Video: 56:08-56:55]

  • Work had been expected to resume on Styles (allowing multiple colours, etc., for an item to appear within a single listing rather than each requiring its own listing) following the deployment of the MP Search updates, with the plan for a deployment early-ish in 2023.
  • As the Search updates deployment has been delayed, the work on Styles is currently being “re-prioritised”.

Q&A Summary

  • [Video: 9:41-11:09] Marketplace Refresh / Rebuild:
    • This is still being looked at as a project for development and possible initial deployment in 2023.
    • There are still no firm plans in place as to what will be changed and why, how things will look, etc.
    • Feature requests and suggestions from users and merchants are welcome via the Second Life Jira.
  • [Video: 45:20-End] Marketplace suggestions:
    • LL provide an individual RSS feed to all Marketplace stores for announcing new releases, etc.
      • Whilst not refused as a suggestion, the point was made that implementing and maintaining such a service would not necessarily be easy or direct – as every MP store would require a feed, regardless of whether or not the store owner uses it / people actually subscribe to it via their RSS readers.
      • There is already functionality available for this within the MP via Favourite Stores > Age: Newest First. This gives a thumbnail view of the most recent 4 releases for every store a user has selected as a Favourite, providing something of an at-a-glance view. It is not as proactive as an RSS feed but has the benefit of already being available.
    • A request to include a Date Uploaded field in Marketplace descriptions. This would:
      • Help determine the overall age of a product, allowing it to be better (but not perfectly) assessed against more recent improvements to the platform.
      • If also included in the Favourite Stores summary list, would further help users determine new releases.
      • This is seen as being a part of LL’s wish list for MP improvements.
    • With the move towards supporting the glTF 2.0 specification (initially for PBR materials, but potentially to be expanded to mesh content in general (and eventually possibly animations), these request was made to enable a glTF specific description / search indicator to be added to MP listings.
      • This is something LL has not considered – but given the shift in emphasis involved in glTF adoption, it is something that should be considered over and above the simple “Mesh” definitions in listings.
      • For those unaware, details of the glTF / PBR project work can be found in by CCUG meeting summaries.
    • Requests were also made for:
      • The ability to preview the contents items sold on the MP as boxes – the problem here being the box is seen as just that; a single object, so a means to “access” its contents and then generate a listing them would need to be built.
      • The inclusions of triangle counts / VRAM usage / complexity values for objects and attachments – the problems here are numerous, from how would lists be generated  / populated (e.g. some form of automated analysis of folder / box contents would be required for accuracy),through how should it be presented without “overloading” listings with information, to the question of whether the results would be properly understood by potential purchasers).
    • The ability to add multiple items to a shopping basket, but then select which are to be purchased immediately, and which can be “shelved” for a later purchase (if required), rather than having to purchase everything in the basket.
      • This was also indicated as being on LL’s own wish list of future options for the MP.
  • [Video: 16:28-25:50] Place Pages:
    • Launched in 2017 (see: Linden Lab announces Second Life Place Pages available and Tutorial: creating Second Life Place Pages) Place Pages have never really been utilised or enhanced, which is acknowledged by LL.
    • Currently, there is no clearly-defined use case for Place Pages, although they do have a number of interesting features and capabilities.
    • The think at the Lab at the moment is whether Place Pages:
      • Should be given a degree of work to overhaul them in order to make them more broadly usable, or
      • Scrap them entirely and replace them with something more attractive to users overall – whatever that might be.
    • A perceived attraction with Place Pages is the ability for people to show off / promote their Second Life without necessarily having to have others log-in to the platform – or as a means to encourage them to do so – using tools that might be better attuned to presenting SL through the web compared to “ordinary” website building tools
    • The major reason for not overhauling Place Pages thus far is the fact that they underpin the land auction system.
    • It is acknowledged that given the plans for overhauling the SL web properties in general, there is potential the produce a version of Place Pages with better integration into SL’s web presence, etc.
    • User suggestions for Place Pages are welcome, again via the Second Life Jira.
  • [Video: 27:29-28:02] Communities: a request has been made to expand the range of Second Life communities represented through the Communities landing page (such as the furry community, the sci-fi community, etc). Feature Requests are suggested on these, although it was hinted the number of communities to be rotated on the landing page may be increased.
  • [Video: 34:24-39:00] “Premium a-la Carte”: whilst indicated as something LL would like to do, the idea of an “a-la carte” set of Premium benefits users can choose from and they pay a fee based on their selection, there are significant issues around general maintenance and billing and tracking which options each user has subscribed to.
    • What happens if a user selects option A as a part of their package, but then decides they don’t need it, and  they want to remove it (and its cost) or swap it for one or more other options + their costs? How frequently should this be allowed? How are the changes to track and recognised by the viewer and relevant back-end services? How is billing to be managed?
    • How much work is involved in managing an options list (adding new options to it or remove unpopular items from it, in order to maintain its appeal with users, etc.?
    • How complex any a-la carte system might be was demonstrated by the number of different views expressed in the meeting as to what options might be attractive to different people.
    • There is also the question as to whether an “a-la carte” option is required, or whether the existing Premium  / Premium Plus subscription levels need to be adjusted.

Next Meeting

  • Wednesday, February 1st, 2023. Venue and time per top of this summary.

Peace is a Choice: the art artists of Second Life

Peace is a Choice, January 2023

In 2016 I visited the wrote by the Peace is a Choice Gallery, founded and curated by Dove (TheDove Rhode) and located on the north coast of Nautilus. Originally founded as the the S&S Gallery of Fine Art more than 15 years ago, the gallery has grown to a region-wide centre of 2D and 3D art, both collected by Dove and provided by the artists, the displays of art both indoors and out with event spaces.

At the time of my 2016, the focal point for the gallery was its impressive glass-and-steel main building (one of Calpo Wrexler’s extraordinary designs) which was bracketed by outdoor display areas and a dance studio. Whilst the main hall remains, the external facilities appear – at least to my eyes and a memory that is admittedly dimmed by the intervening years – have increased to offer more space for artists, including what appear to be dedicated parcels.

Peace is a Choice, January 2023

Within the main gallery building – the entrance to which forms the landing point for the centre – visitors may find 2D and 3D art, animated and static, by the likes of Cica Ghost, Bryn Oh, CioTToLiNa Xue, Chao’s’Chen (sChen), Moya Patrick (Moya Janus), Nessuno Myoo, Morlĭ (MORLITA Quan), Alo (Aloisio Congrejo), all of which have been provided by way of Dove’s personal collection of art, which are joined by pieces donated / exhibited by some of the artists named above and also the likes of Daco Monday, Robin Moore, Noke Yuitza, Russel Eponym, Gleman Jun, Fuschia Nightfire, and Ink van Helsinki (Instincta Starchild).

Beyond the main hall are additional installations of 3D art, together with some indoors and 2D gallery spaces. These outdoor areas present works by Vroum Short, Kerupa Flow, Haveit Neox, Kicca Igaly, Tansee, Igor Ballyhoo and several of the already-named artists above, together with dedicated spaces by Paula Cloudpainter (paula31atnight), Rage Darkstone and TerraMerhyem, Cherry Manga, and Vincent Priesley (sweetvincent).

Peace is a Choice: Vroum Short – January 2023

As I noted in August 2016, such is volume of art and its placement across the centre’s land, Peace is a Choice offers one of the most engaging displays of art:

Whether you start your explorations inside or outside the gallery is entirely a matter of choice; there is no set path to follow, and Dove has wisely placed the art so that there are no assigned areas for individual artists. This allows for some interesting juxtapositions of art, technique and expression, allowing visitors to gain a strong feel for contrasting styles among artists in Second Life.

– Myself, August 2016

Peace is a Choice, January 2023

Getting around the various installations can be a little bewildering – during my 2016 visit I found myself flycamming a lot, and did the same this time around. However, explorations during my original visit were also aide by the presences of a teleport system; while it is entirely possible I missed it this time around, I did try to keep an eye out for it. On the plus side, this encourages exploration on foot,

A further complication to easy exploration is that some of the parcels, such as by walking around the front and sides of the main gallery to reach the beach and and outside deck display areas. However, it was disappointing to note that some of the connecting exhibition parcels are restricted to those with Payment Information On File (PIOF). Whilst once a common practice to discourage griefing, used within what is intended to be a public space does run the risk of itself being seen as unwelcoming by those new to Second Life who are simply exploring and seeking places of interest to engage their curiosity, but who have not yet registered a payment method with Linden Lab.

Peace is a Choice, January 2023

This aside, Peace is a Choice makes for a fascinating visit, with much to see and and appreciate, with one of the richest cross-sections of art past and present to be found in Second Life.

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2023 SUG meetings week #1 summary

Tempelhof, November 2022 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023, the simhosts on the Main SLS channel were restarted with no deployment, leaving them on simulator version 576542
  • On Wednesday, January 4th, 2023, the simhosts on the RC channels should be restarted without any deployment or change to the current release.

Early 2023 Simulator Updates

AS per the previous SUG meeting:

  • I believe the RC deployment from week #50 (with 30-second sound loop support) was rolled back. If so, this is liable to be one of the first simulator updates for 2023 (targeted for January 11th, 2023), and / or possibly an update comprising a number of HTTP updates, including the accounting for custom HTTP headers (total space for headers will increase to 4k and the limit on the number of headers will be dropped).
  • Also early 2023 LSL will be updated with new cryptographic signing utilities: llHMAC (per BUG-233005) and llSignRSA and llVerifyRSA (per BUG-233009). These should be useful for script to script and script to external web service communications. These may be included in the above release.
    • BUG-226463 “llRequestSecureURL() uses self-signed cert” is also “on the radar” but no target date for potential delivery / deployment.
  • Further (unspecified) improvements will be coming to the Linkset Data (LSD) capabilities.

Available Official Viewers

This list reflects the current status of available official viewers at the start of 2023:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance P (Preferences, Position and Paste) RC viewer version 6.6.8.576863 Monday, December 12, 2022.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance (Q)uality RC viewer, version 6.6.9.577220, December 16, 2022.
    • Performance Floater / Auto-FPS RC viewer, version 6.6.8.576737, November 28, 2022.
    • VS  2022 RC viewer, version 6.6.8.576310, issued November 4 – utilises Visual Studio 2022 in the Windows build tool chain.
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.577157, December 14, 2022.
      • This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.
    • Love Me Render (LMR) 6 graphics improvements project viewer 6.6.2.573263, July 21, 2022.

In Brief

2023 – General Goals Set by the Lab

In their Review of the Year, Linden Lab outlined the following goals to be delivered during the year (nor all of which are the responsibility of the server / simulator engineering team):

  • Further performance improvements to increase the quality and visual fidelity of the Second Life experience through the viewer.
  • New LSL functions that improve the quality of life for scripters.
  • Initial deployment of physically-based rendering (PBR)  / glTF 2.0 specification support. This will initially comprise glTF materials support, together with the implementation of reflection probes.
  • Avatar customisation improvements to simplify creating your virtual identity, including inventory thumbnails to give a preview of what individual items are.
  • New user experience upgrades to better fuel retention, engagement, and growth across key parts of the new user journey.
  • New centralised “hubs” to better connect residents to the communities that match their passions and interests.
  • First peek at a world and avatar centred mobile-first Second Life experience.

In addition, Rider Linden is an LSL call to allow the replacement of sub-strings in a string call (e.g. non-RegEx behaviour). If implemented, this might most likely be called either llStringReplace() or llReplaceSubString(). As he was still on vacation at this meeting, it is something that will likely be picked up at SUG meetings going forward.

WIBNIs from Users

The following were suggested as a series of “wouldn’t it be nice if LL could provide” requests. Note these were only suggestions / discussion points not projects / ideas the Lab will necessarily implement in the short or long term:

  • The perennial request for a further focus on region crossing improvements.
  • A suggestion for an enhancement to Linkset Data (LSD).
  • A function which could be applied to Animesh objects to allow them to use the head/eye tracking that avatars use when focused on a target (so, for example, scripted scripted Animesh NPCs would “look at” avatars addressing them).
  • Suggested animation updates:
    • A procedural animation editor to allow creators / users to set the rules of how avatars walk, run, jump; their timings, how animations play priority wise and mixing wise in the series, all able to be packaged up into an item (a further suggestion for the in-development Puppetry project).
    • Improved animation formats and easier means of animation import into Second Life.
    • The ability to dynamically set animation priorities for more fluid animation integration (e.g. when you are holding and pointing a gun, you continue to point it as you walk, rather than the avatar’s arm dropping to a walking animation when moving).
    • All of these are liable to be topics for further discussion during Puppetry project meetings, but initiated a general discussion on animations and animating avatars which took up the majority of this SUG meeting – please refer to the meeting video below.

 

Cherishville’s winter 2023 in Second Life

Cherishville Winter, January 2023 – click any image for full size

It was off back to Lam Erin’s Cherishville for my first blog on places to explore in 2023. A locale that changes with the seasons, this Full region was, at the time I dropped in, dressed for winter, although things started to change as this article was being finished (the Christmas village mentioned below poofed, for example), so things may well have changed some more by the time you read this!

As a photographer, Lam has an eye for detail and this is often reflected in his region designs, something which is very much the case here – albeit at a potential cost for some visitors, as the region is very heavily loaded with mesh and – particularly – animated mesh snow; something which prompted me to spend a few minutes de-rendering in order to give my FPS a boost whilst physically exploring the region on foot, rather than camming.

Cherishville Winter, January 2023

Unlike other changes in iteration, the winter 2023 version of Cherishville actually reflects the autumn 2022 version, which I wrote about in October 2022; the overall design remains largely unchanged, except for the seasonal details replacing the more autumnal – trees denuded of leaves but hung with lanterns, the gently lapping waters of the inlet now frozen and a thick blanket of snow replacing the grass and leaves on the ground – and the likes of snowmen, polar bears and (inevitably), penguins and giant Christmas toy soldiers replacing the horses and cattle.

The fact that Lam has retained the look and feel of the Autumnal 2022 version of Cherishville allows us to witness a very realistic changing of the seasons in a familiar landscape (and indeed, as I missed it, the overall design might hark back as far as summer 2022). Perhaps the most identifiable changes between the autumn and winter settings was the presence of a little Christmas Village tucked into the north-east corner of the region and watched over by the aforementioned giant toy soldiers.

Cherishville Winter, January 2023

The best way to appreciate the new design is to follow the snowy road as it loops and winds around the region, offering views by turn of the main hamlet, the Christmas village and the frozen inlet where, for reasons best known to himself, Santa has opted to go … skiing.

The road also passes by the other major change from the autumn design, located down in the south-west corner, where a large barn appears to be a place where fir trees were being sold for home decorating through the season (and to which the trucks carrying  fir trees might be related). A little hot drinks stall sits alongside the barn and, just beyond it a skating rink with one of those little errors of detail Lam tends to include in his builds: a floating floating serenely a couple of metres above the rink!

Cherishville Winter, January 2023

With the inlet and the roadside hamlet above it, and the train line and station to the north, there are plenty of opportunities of photography which can be used to contrast the winter design with that of autumn for those who previously visited the latter and wish to make a re-visit.

For my part, however, given I’ve previously described the setting at some length just a few months ago, I’ll shut up here, and instead finished with a couple more images and the suggestion that whether or not you dropped into Cherishville during the autumn, now might be a good time to hop over and catch it in its winter dressing before more changes!

Cherishville Winter, January 2023
Cherishville Winter, January 2023

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